Honda is making a strong push into the realm of electric motorcycles, and two concept models revealed at EICMA continue that push. The EV Fun Concept and the EV Urban Concept are two of the most honest concept bikes I’ve seen recently. Each of them appears to be exactly what they claim to be, at least from the limited information available so far.

EV Fun Concept

The name says “fun,” and that’s what this bike is supposed to be all about. The EV Fun Concept is Honda’s electric equivalent to a midsize naked sport bike. Unlike electric-only upstarts like Zero, Honda has vast amounts of experience to draw from in this type of motorcycle, which does bear a vague resemblance to the CB500F. It uses a fixed battery, not the Honda Mobile Power Pack e system, and is compatible with the same standard CCS2 quick chargers that electric cars use. Perhaps that battery is inside the Lego-like brick in the middle of the frame, which looks similar to the original LiveWire One. Honda promises a range of more than 100 km (62 miles), which doesn’t even come close to the Zero SR/F’s 176-mile range. While many concept bikes are design exercises or simply vaporware, Honda says the EV Fun Concept is quite real and “scheduled to be commercialized in 2025.” What that actually means remains to be seen.

EV Urban Concept

We know even less about the EV Urban Concept. It looks like something between a scooter and the quirky NM4. With a big box, likely the battery, where the footwell would usually be, it is unclear whether the rider would put their feet there or on pegs that don’t exist in this concept. It certainly looks like an electric scooter made for cities, but it’s unclear how it differs from the CUV e that was also announced today except for appearance. All Honda has to say about the EV Urban Concept makes it sound more like a design exercise than an upcoming production model:

The EV Urban Concept reconstructs from scratch Honda’s vision of what urban electric mobility should be. It embodies a vision of near-future mobility that cooperates and resonates with people and society through its essential and sophisticated styling, intuitive human-machine interface (HMI), and new experiences created by the fusion of software and hardware. Honda’s goal is to open up the freedom of mobility to as many customers as possible, and to expand the possibilities of mobility for each and every customer.

Honda is extremely optimistic about its electric future, even though it seems to be falling short of its promise to introduce 10 or more electric two-wheelers globally by 2025, less than two months away. These two concepts, plus the existing EM1 e and the CUV e, bring that count to just four. Honda also plans to introduce 30 electric models globally by 2030, as well as achieve carbon neutrality for all of its motorcycle products in the 2040s and through all of its products and corporate activities by 2050. However, we’ve seen Zero make great progress in a short time with some genuinely great motorcycles and far fewer resources. If the corporate powerhouse of Honda puts its mind to it, it may well meet these goals despite getting a slow start in the EV world.